Foundry's 'Kid Thunder' makes a bang at Fort Barry

Octavio Roca, Chronicle Dance Critic

Published
4:00 am PDT, Wednesday, October 2, 2002

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Foundry's 'Kid Thunder' makes a bang at Fort Barry

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The Foundry and the Headlands have teamed up again to create an extraordinary dance. The new piece is called "Kid Thunder," and its two sold- out performances Sunday unveiled a gripping, original work that is hard to define but very easy to admire.

It is an intimate piece, on first impression not as ambitious as last year's "Capacity for Shallowness," a breakthrough for the dance collective known as the Foundry. But precisely in its openness to exposing the creative process itself, as well as in some intensely personal performances, the hourlong dance proved intriguing and vastly entertaining. "Kid Thunder" was a hit.

Luensman created the eerie sonic landscape of whispers and thunder, while Biswas danced persuasively and added his own musical layers ranging from percussion to plangent song. Andrea Flores and Marina Hotchkiss, moonlighting from Alonzo King's Lines Ballet, rounded out the cast alongside a dynamic newcomer called Nick Yagoda.

All but Luensman were onstage as the audience entered the 1907 Gym at Fort Barry, with Biswas seated before an array of percussion instruments stage left,

the newly bearded Ketley standing in the center next to Flores, with Hotchkiss nearby and Burns seated stage right. All were dressed in hip, casual clothes except for Burns, who was wrapped in pink paper and masking tape. A steady video projection moved from mysterious views of an empty room to close- ups of faces revealed only in part.

The dancing also seemed intent on giving away only some of its secrets: Slow phrases emphasized the connections between steps. There was logic in the choreography, but it was very subtle. After a sad, ecstatic vocalise by Biswas,

Flores stretched her way to where he sat and lay down on top of his xylophone.

He took his mallet and tickled her, making music of her giggles.

A bluesy version of "Sometime I Feel Like a Motherless Child" wafted in from what sounded like an old radio as Yagoda crawled toward Ketley. Flores got up, joined them in a sensual little trio as Biswas picked up a sort of hand organ in a box and walked around them playing a dirge, always oscillating between two pitches, gently modulating upward. Agitated variations followed, often stopping as if in midflight, as Flores and Hotchkiss touched and teased each other.

Then the scene changed abruptly. Huge images from an overhead projector appeared, with Yagoda changing slides and giving a sort of lecture about phenotypes, DNA, population vectors and Kid Thunder. I doubt it was supposed to make sense, but in any case it was tough to pay attention despite Yagoda's disarming delivery. What mattered more and more as the scene developed was Ketley, possessed by private music and dancing a manic solo close to the audience where each change of direction seemed a sensually charged call for help.

SPONTANEOUS ECSTASY

Ketley's dance seemed spontaneous and transgressive. Biswas interrupted Ketley's ecstasy with a high-pitched whistle, and what sounded like Buddhist bells gone bonkers resounded in the space. At one point the whole cast faced Burns, who had not moved until now.

Burns at last stood, with great effort, the tape binding his body ripping a little with each phrase. As in Flores' initial diagonal at the start of the piece, Burns let the witnesses savor the process of each phrase. His slow and graceful progress reached its destiny when it seemed he could move no longer. Then he crawled into darkness, and the layers and layers of sounds were peeled away. There was an awful silence as "Kid Thunder" ended. Then there was thunderous applause.

The setting is breathtaking. Old Fort Barry is perched on the side of the Marin Headlands, near the Lagoon Trail with the Pacific in view. It is a uniquely moving instance of turning swords into plowshares, when an old Army gym becomes the unlikely setting for some of the most original dancemaking anywhere. And, make no mistake, that is what the Foundry is doing.